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"A lot of people go out on the town and celebrate with their friends. Their family has a big party somewhere," Biesendorfer said. "I thought I'm turning 40, I can do 40 random acts of kindness, maybe ask people to pay it forward."

Biesendorfer put a message out to her closest 400 friends on Facebook, asking them to donate $10 to the Bal Swan Children's Center, a pre-school in Westminster that serves kids with regular and special needs. She's on the board of directors.

The school is working towards raising $75,000 for by January.

"If I can ask my friends and family to not celebrate my birthday with me but instead give a $10 donation to Bal Swan, the cost it would cost them to buy me a martini if we went out. To me that felt right. That's what I wanted to do."

Biesendorfer started just a few days ago with a goal of $400. By Friday, she was nearing $800 in donations and adjusted her goal to $5,000.

"People are giving more than I asked, in some cases quite a bit more. There are people giving donations who I know may not necessarily find it easy to give the ten dollars," she said.

In return, Biesendorfer has donated money to the Salvation Army, delivered home-made cards to seniors, brought home-made muffins to a new neighbor, taped a dollar to a vending machine at work and left surprise treats to co-workers.

"This is the best birthday I've ever had," she said.

9NEWS caught up with her on Friday when Biesendorfer delivered doughnuts to Fire Station 4 in Westminster and books and bird seed for a teacher at Bal Swan.